PROTECTING LIBERTIES

We are all told to continue with business as usual to show the terrorists
that they haven't damaged the American way. I, for one, totally agree with
that.

We should continue on with our daily lives. Our going to work or buying and
selling and even travel should not change.

Our way of government also should not change. Our constitutional republic
should also stay within the legal bounds set forth by its very founding
document, the Constitution.

Because some maniac murderers want to try to scare us is not a good enough
reason to infringe on the rights of the legal citizens of our land. There
are no footnotes to the Bill of Rights. There are no exceptions or
conditions to our liberties.

I am a patriotic American, and I don't care how much our enemies try to
terrorize -- I will not give up my freedoms in the name of security.

I will not change my daily buying or traveling habits, and I will not
surrender my American liberties to the terrorists or to our own government.

I fear the so-called war on terrorism will finish what the war on drugs
started. We all will be treated with suspicion and subjected to more
unconstitutional laws. Rallying the people into a pseudo-patriotic fever is
not what will keep America strong. Reading our Bibles, praying and living
by the Bible will.

Everybody reading the Constitution, and requiring the government to live by
it, also will live by it. If citizens will do these two things, we will
remain unbowed for the long run.

Ryan Brennan, Spartanburg